


Necessary helps and happy endings.

by marcoftmario



Series: You can't hide love forever. [2]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Friendship/Love, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, i just wanted marco to be happy, this doesnt make a lot of sense, we all know mario is an idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5630611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcoftmario/pseuds/marcoftmario
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Auba wants to help his friend, so he just does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Necessary helps and happy endings.

**Author's Note:**

> First work of 2016, yaaaay. Okay, this sets right after the end of I Want To Tell You How Much I Love You (I suck at names, shh), and I don't know if it'll make sense if you haven't read that one. Wait. I don't know if it'll make sense even if you've read that one, so... xD  
> Also, it says 'happy endings' but it's not really an ending; I'm planning on making more of these, maybe drabbles, but I don't know if it'll work (I'll write them anyways xD).  
> Well, enjoy reading it, kudos and feedback are always welcome <3.  
> PS: Happy 2016 to everyone! Have a good year, read a lot of fanfics and... I don't know, be happy.

The mere fact of being close to Marco made him feel much younger, almost like a kid. Like the teenager he was when his friends were something more than friends and as long as they didn’t hurt anybody, had fun and didn’t love each other everything would be good. Or maybe they loved and were loved. Maybe they loved each other like Auba loved Marco, with that passion and feeling that didn’t necessarily have to be taken to something romantic or sexual –especially if you considered that Marco was already deeply in love with someone else–. Yeah, they surely loved him that way, and he had surely loved them alike. It was a love so carefree, so sure, knowing that one day Marco would tell him that Mario had accepted him as the most important part of his life, maybe as a couple, how could he not accept him, and he would be so happy for his friend that he wouldn’t even think that it meant _not being together like that._ Because they weren’t in a relationship, they hadn’t sworn eternal love and… they hadn’t even sworn love. They only were in the right place in the right moment, and things happened on its own. They didn’t want to avoid it from happening, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t feel completely in love with someone else. He couldn’t stop feeling happy for him.

Auba loved Marco. That was the irrefutable, the obvious. Lamentably, there wasn’t other option. But that statement lost validity if you didn’t take in count that for Auba, love was just love and it didn’t have to be divided in different ‘types’. It was so stupid the _I love you only as a friend, I love you but no because I see you on a different way,_ and even worse the _I love you but I don’t know if I’m in love._

That’s why when the blond appeared on his house, standing on his doorstep, hesitating and serious as hardly ever, and told him Mario’s reaction, he was surprised just to the thought that he wasn’t _that_ surprised.

He didn’t know much about Mario on the personal side out of what Marco had told him, and that wasn’t too impartial. If he took to the verbatim everything his friend told him, by example, Auba would be thinking that Mario (and it’s a quote from real words pronounced by Marco on his moments of weakness, that he called sincerity) he _has that smile that you can’t believe it’s real and only makes you think that he’s cuter than he really is._ He didn’t know Mario, but he did know Marco, and the only thing that seemed a bit strange for him was the older being capable of telling the other about his love. It wasn’t like it was hard to realize when your best friend dedicated a lot of hours to think about Mario, to doubt of himself and, finally, to doubt of the other one.

How could Marco have confessed his love? Marco was _fearful._ Marco was smiley, cheerful, lovely, loving, friendly, yes, he was that and a lot of things more, but he was also very fearful. He had denied doing a lot of things in his life with the excuse that it was the right thing to do or that it was what he wanted to do, but everyone knew that he really did it fearing what could happen, what people could say. So, how could he suddenly have the strength to do it, how he had not predicted what the answer would be? How was it possible? How he hadn’t been strong enough to ratify his confession, his point of view, to say it again and scream it, to prevent Mario from saying that everything he had said was a joke?

“He thought I was drunk. Well, yes, I was drunk when I did it, but he didn’t realize what I meant with it, I swear.” He stayed still, in silence, while all Auba could do was to shake his head in disbelief, and looked at him in the eye for a long time, until the voice came out as a wail, as a scream of resignation that was repressed and was now imploring to go out. “I fell in love with an idiot.”

Auba could not agree more. He had a wonderful person desperate to tell his love, to show his love for him, and he did nothing at all about it. He didn’t even realize. _How could he not realize._ “What do I do now? Do I keep living my life, as always? I can’t. I swear I can’t.”

He was desperate, drowning on his glass of water. With the last words his voice cracked, but he didn’t cry. Marco didn’t cry; he just hugged him and let himself be reciprocated by someone taller than him. “What if…?” he looked at him. It was as if something was on his mind, and Auba wasn’t sure that it was good. “What if he understood… and he wanted to leave clear that he doesn’t want anything with me? He’s telling me not to insist anymore!”

Oh. There he was again with his excuses. But this time he wasn’t letting him use any of them. If it was necessary, he would force him to tell Mario.

_Auba loved Marco._

“No, no. That’s impossible. Based on what you told me from him, if he’d realized you would’ve noticed.” He was talking quickly, desperate to avoid Marco from taking a hurried decision that would be later irrevocable, waiting for him to finally stop shunning to everything he needed to do, because it was hurting himself. He was only getting hurt.

“No. That makes a lot of sense; I need to get everything as it was before. This is some kind of second chance he’s giving me and I need to use it as much as I can.” He sat down, understanding immediately everything the serious look on Auba’s face meant. “Listen to me. I can’t live without the presence of Mario Götze in my life, and I don’t say it just to say something, I say it because I already tried. If there’s a minimal doubt on my friendship with him, I’ll… I don’t know; I’ll kill myself. You know perfectly how homophobic the ambient of football can be, the ambient of the people who were raised with football on their lives. I won’t let that the relatively happy life I’ve got get ruined by... something so stupid.”

“It isn’t stupid, Marco” he tried again. That couldn’t stay like that; Auba didn’t know which one of them both was stupider. Was it so hard to admit he was in love?

_Auba loved Marco, but he wanted Marco to be happy with Mario. Auba felt loved by Marco, he felt loved by him because he was his friend, his best friend._

“It’s not stupid because it makes you feel bad. If something makes you feel bad you’ll have to solve it; you won’t solve anything by pretending that you have everything under control when you’re actually scared of what people will say.”

“I don’t want to solve anything!” the tone of voice went a little bit out of control, but Auba kept unfazed. He could consider himself a professional on keeping unfazed when someone’s voice went out of control.

“Okay. Okay, don’t solve anything. You’ll be unhappy and end up regretting it, I assure you that. But it’s okay, it’s your decision, you’re a grown man to have someone telling you what to do.” He tried to say it in the softest tone he could, and he knew Marco would understand. He knew it had been like that when the suspect of a smile appeared on his gaunt features.

“Thank you for respecting my decision. Come on, that you seem to be the only one who does it here. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Well, surely not goals.”

 

Thinking about Marco made him lose sleep, and that was the reason why Thomas was demanding him to push himself harder in trainings (because they didn’t have enough with the faster on the team scoring goals, they also wanted him not to smile the whole day and not to be disobedient for a second). Thinking, more than in Marco he thought about his problems, about how after the incident his humor and attitude had changed drastically and Auba had to come up with a million things to raise his mood. He was getting sick of pretending he didn’t know what was happening, to be the one who stayed silent and looked. Because, yes, he was an adult and could do whatever he wanted, but he was also one of his best friends and he couldn’t stay silent. His duty was, at least, to express his worry. As a friend. As someone who cared about him.

That’s why he added, without effort to ask for his number, Mario Götze on Whatsapp and started talking to him. He thought a bit about it before doing it, because there were a lot of possibilities of Marco finding out, but after all he was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and he spoke practically to everyone.

Their first conversations were short, relaxed, on the little English they both knew, without talking about anything but talking about something at the same time; this type of conversations where you know you’re talking about _something_ but when they ask you, you don’t know what to say because you feel you aren’t talking about anything. Marco wouldn’t find out; how would he find out, Mario hadn’t told him anything because he didn’t suspect anything and Auba was not going to tell him.

And now definitely, he couldn’t tell what his best friend had seen so special about Mario Götze. He was superficial, even a bit childish; he was likeable, yes, but as soon as he tried to speak of something more serious he realized of how little intelligence he had (he wasn’t an idiot, it wasn’t like he couldn’t think; he was just the typical football player). What he _could_ understand, though, was how he didn’t understand what Marco would’ve wanted to say with the message he had sent him.

_Auba loved Marco, but he wanted Marco to be happy with Mario. Auba felt loved by Marco, he felt loved because it was his best friend. Auba loved Marco so much that he felt capable of doing anything for his happiness._

He didn’t know what point he could reach, till what point his decided and overprotecting temperament would let Mario to go on life thinking that the blond wasn’t more than his best friend, that he could never be more. He knew that he, Auba, was dangerous, he knew that as soon as he got tired of that he wouldn’t hesitate for a second and, almost without realizing it, he would tell him, as if it was his responsibility. As if he had the right to confess it.

And maybe he had rights to tell it, even if he only had them when he was inside his house, alone; even if he doubted a lot of times. He felt like he had some rights.

Opportunely, sometime after Marco’s tattoo was fixed (the exact contrary of what happened with his life) they had to play a match against Bayern Munich. He was too concentrated on _playing football_ before the match started to pay attention to the greetings; how Marco and Mario had to say hello on the tunnel and then outside, but he knew how that was going to be: normal. Marco wasn’t going to say ‘I love you’ to him; the only thing he could do was hug him a couple of seconds more than the normal; he would express his love with a glance the other wouldn’t understand, and nothing else. He got focused, for a couple of seconds, on looking friendly and smiley to him, asking him in English how life was going, in front of the frown with confusion and the smile that was threatening with deforming the thin lips rounded by a slight, blond beard that was just starting to grow and that he knew Marco would shave soon, while he went quickly to sit on the bench (he had been relegated to that fatidic place thanks to his fragile ankle again, that was on a delicate state… again).

He saw Mario following him with the eyes, a nostalgic face, probably remembering the times when if he was happy after a match, the other one would be happy too, and if he felt sad the feeling would be the exact same and they could hug once the match ended; he saw how Marco didn’t realize of his look when he tapped Mats, the captain, the first one who waited to go and play, on the back, and told him something before disappearing from their view. He saw Mario’s smile, didn’t say anything, and felt like he didn’t even know he was in love. He hated him.

What sane person would leave Marco, the person who could deserve a lot of things but not being abandoned like that, almost without warning, with so much taste of betrayal?

Of course, but… what sane person would forgive and be still in love with Mario after such thing?

Only those two.

 

They ended up winning the game 2-1, in the way how you win those games; security, without playing exceptionally good but with a lot of authority over the other team. Auba scored two goals (he went to celebrate both with Marco on the bench, hugging him and forgetting him about Mario and feeling and everything), and Mario made the one that wasn’t comforting at all for Bayern (Thomas came up and hugged him pretty less euphoric, but he wanted to hug Marco, and didn’t celebrate it; he raised both hands on a gesture of saying sorry. He didn’t want to be contributing on hurting him with anything he did, because on his heart he knew he didn’t belong to Dortmund anymore, he couldn’t belong anymore, and that hurt, not so much for the club but for the people who were there. For his best friend).

Marco ended up happy. He was prioritizing football over the person he was in love with, the club he’d loved his whole life and for which he had sacrificed so much over a person who had been one of the pillars of his life but that now was rambling on it, half present, half absent, and threatening every time with getting out of it at every second, threatening to choose other things over him as he had done before, as he had ensured him he would do if the occasion was there. Auba knew that because Marco had told him. Auba knew his fears, what he was afraid to, because he had told him, he had revealed it to him without hesitating, just like he said everything to him, as he was gradually reveling him everything while he got to know him.

Auba’s mind started formulating a question while he thought about that subject, that night while they were coming back to Dortmund, to his house, from an excellent mood. He didn’t want to ask him that one, when he saw him smiling again, when he saw him talking lively, gesticulating and so much cheerful than before while he interacted with his teammates. He preferred to leave him like that, not wanting to rub salt in the wound: as long as the other one was happy, seemed happy, he didn’t care if his after all not so important questions were answered or not.

There was a moment when he was about to say something. Someone had made a joke that Auba couldn’t hear and Marco’s smile had disappeared slowly. For a couple of minutes, he had remained completely serious for a couple of minutes before that, when Auba had softly put a hand on his shoulder to call for his attention, looking at him in the eye, and he had asked him if he was alright. “How can I be sad?” he asked, going back to the smile with less intention. “We won!  Bayern is nothing compared to us!” he seemed just about to add something; he even opened his mouth, but ended without saying anything. He avoided completely his eyes, however, and the smile sometimes failed inevitably, two things he had realized.

 

But time passed, weeks passed, and with them there were new matches, new results, almost always good, hard teams to play against and teams not so much, and goals; specially goals. And Marco could score all the goals in the world, and Auba could hug him until the both were breathless, that Marco’s smile would always appear a bit later, to seem a bit false.

Auba was getting tired of that, and when he got tired he had zero tolerance. That’s why, a day like all, on their hotel room the night before a match, he decided to say it to him for once. But he was intelligence, and even when he had no patience he always thought before saying something. “Er, Marco?”

The blond was doing something on his phone, laying on the bed and very relaxed. He didn’t realize of his tone of voice, or that’s what he let him see –lately he was thinking and feeling a lot more than what he let see–. “What?”

“Are you talking to Mario?” now, depending of his answer that was going to be sincere, it had to be, he would see what he said.

“…yes” the blond answered, with caution, with a sincerity that took both by surprise. “Why are you asking? He told me you were talking. Be careful, please.” He raised his head and dropped the phone on the bed, looking at him, while Auba got on his feet, looking for clothes and looking at his reflex on the mirror, to pretend he didn’t care that much about it.

“Oh, no, I will. But why don’t you call him and tell him something small, like, I don’t know, you’re bisexual?”

Marco had his eyes glued to Auba’s, with shocked seriousness, _literally_ with the mouth a bit open; obviously too surprised to remember any other thing that wasn’t the question. He had so many things on his mind that he didn’t know which one he needed to do first. “Why should I tell him?” he finally said, with a different voice.

“Well, because you told me, didn’t you? And he’s the other best friend, shouldn’t he know it?”

He tried to answer (‘yes, but…’) that wasn’t prosperous because Marco was too in shock and trying to know why Auba was making that question so reasonable. “Marco, do you trust him?” and before he tried to answer that he did, after doubting: “You don’t necessarily _need_ to trust him. Mario left the club, went to Bayern, told you a few days before doing it, and he had rights; he could do all that, he didn’t need to excuse to anybody, but it wouldn’t be unfair for you not to feel confident enough to tell him everything about your life. You should talk about it with him.” He dropped the bomb and, on the sly, he left to the bathroom to have a bath; he didn’t want to fight with him, he wanted Marco to think. Because he felt like he was right about it, that Marco didn’t trust on the person he loved anymore, and he couldn’t allow him that. He should, at least, realize.

For that very reason, he tried to get into… dangerous ground with Mario. That same night.

 

**_Mario Götze (online)_ **

_“Hey!” 20:00 pm._

Between them, they only spoke English, just as he did with Marco. He had learnt a little bit of German; but his skills weren’t enough to write, and he preferred not to be exposed to write something he didn’t know the meaning.

_“Hello” 20:02 pm._

_“Hey, how long is it since you talked to Marco about some… serious stuff?” 20:03 pm._

And if he couldn’t answer that question (that was the most logical chance, since he was sure that it had been a long ago) he knew the reason why Marco was like he was. He needed to _really_ feel the presence from his best friend on his life, and the younger didn’t know. He didn’t realize.

_“Um… i don’t remember. Why?” 20:03 pm._

_“Because he’s been weird lately. And you know, with everything that’s on his mind, everything that happened to him, his… things” 20:05 pm._

He didn’t want to say more than he should; if he said something that could betray him when Mario spoke with Marco (because he would, you didn’t have to be a genius or know him too much to know that Mario would go straight to ask Marco what was happening to him, if he was lucky without mentioning him) he didn’t know what the blond could do to him.

_“Seriously? What’s happening to him?” 20:05 pm.  
“I can hardly hear about something serious about him, cause logically it’s not the same. I cant see him everyday and its not the same reading or only listening to him than seeing him everyday, isn’t it?” 20:06 pm._

_“Oh, he didn’t tell you?!” 20:06 pm._  
“Then it’s none of my business to tell you, he has to say it” 20:06 pm.  
“Anyways, how’s life going?”20:07 pm.

 

He was going to have so many problems. He was already feeling them.

It wasn’t like he regret doing that; he hadn’t told him that Marco was in love with him. He had just made him know that something was wrong with Marco and he wasn’t telling him; the little push they needed to speak, to truly speak. It wouldn’t be bad. And if he did, they would survive, come back stronger. They had done it once, after all.

 

He didn’t realize immediately of Marco’s opinion at his intromission. They weren’t together all day, but a big part of it, so it wasn’t weird for him if the shortest of both had gone in training and lunch, as far from him as possible.

He also didn’t find _so_ out of the normal that the only one –yes, Mats was doing it too– who didn’t laugh at his jokes that day. He could let that slip. Maybe he was angry because of the pose from the other day. He was surely bothered about it, but he hadn’t shown it till that day.

And, when he thought about it, it wasn’t _that_ rare that he didn’t jump to defend the idea of the whole Batman and Robin thing as he would’ve done before when some of their teammates laughed at them.

What had surprised him, beyond everything, was the lack of any commentary accompanied with a smile towards him, that smile that understood itself every time someone noticed something that they had been talking about recently or that they had a formed and known opinion.

“Auba” he called him at some point, the voice was soft and calm, as soft and calm as Marco’s voice could be; he didn’t smile and Auba knew why. He didn’t smile, and if Marco wasn’t smiling when talking to him he needed to be _really_ angry. Auba knew why he was calling him, he knew practically what he was going to say, and he didn’t feel nervous or guilty at all. He knew Marco, he knew that when he got angry he got tizzy and threw everything to your face but later regretted it, told you that he shouldn’t have reacted like that and said he was sorry. Auba didn’t pay him attention anymore, really. He just got closer to him. “What did you say to Mario exactly? Is it your fault that he’s like that? Why is he like that? And don’t lie to me, because he said _I want you to know that I do worry about you_ and he asked me if there was something I needed to tell him.”

“Aw, how sweet” they heard, between all the voices that spoke together; Marco had completely forgotten that they were at the dressing room, almost everyone leaving but everyone finishing showering, once finished the afternoon training.

Auba didn’t know what to say. What had he said to Mario? Nothing. He had insinuated that something was happening to Marco, but that was true, and you had to be very slow not to realize that. “I didn’t say anything. I swear, really. But I imagine you told him the truth, didn’t you? That you finally could trust him.”

“No. No, I couldn’t. I can’t tell him anything sincere since he left to Bayern.”

Auba, once Marco said that, with all that hate towards himself and towards Mario for not trusting and not inspiring confidence, respectively, and that expression tired of hiding what couldn’t be hidden and fighting for what he felt couldn’t fight to, he knew, he wanted to tell him, that he only had two options. Because it was true. Because he couldn’t continue like that. Because even in the moments where everything seemed good, keeping talking with him every day that way was hurting him. “You know what you’ve got to do.”

“But I can’t. Auba, I can’t. You don’t understand.”

And it was true, Marco was right; he didn’t understand. But he was tired. “Then, you’re only hurting yourself.”

 

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about it, but for some weeks he had more important things to think about that weren’t Marco; his son, training, that was every day harder, the matches and, finally, the international break, in which he traveled to play representing Gabon. Only a conversation took place before both taking their respective fly, in which Marco communicated him that he had took a decision, with firm stance and decided expression. Auba was proud of that, and he didn’t press any further to make him tell him. He was going to find out by himself which one he had decided as soon as they came back.

 

“Mario, you dumbass! Get your ass out the bed for once!”

“Ah, no, I have the sweetest boyfriend in the world. I swear, it was just a little nap of half an hour!”

Marco smiled, and Auba saw him happier than ever. He had never met him so happy, so smiley, with such a good mood. He never knew what he had said to Mario during the international break, in which they scored wonderful goals and gave each other unforgettable assistances; he didn’t dare to question. The only thing he knew was the expression of Marco and the voice of Mario, going back and building the trust from the beginning, again in the times where they could say anything to each other without fearing being judged.

“Tell him I send greetings.”

Marco winked at him in understanding. “Batman says hi, you’ve got to thank him for all this.”

“…”

“…Mario? Love? Ah, no, I will kill him as soon as I see him; he fucking fell asleep!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you liked this :)


End file.
